A roller derby girl for the last 2 years I felt the time had come to document the experience a little more thoroughly! Here you can see triumphs and failings and maybe even a little strategy. I'm sure I'll end up discussing everything from rules to relationships to bruises. Lets just enjoy the ride shall we?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

I really love Portland. I day dream about moving there and know ridiculous amounts of useless information regarding the place. One of my favorite things to do in Portland is watch roller derby, the Rose City Rollers are the bomb.

and so are their fans....

The one standing on the stairs in the pegacorn vest was entertaining as hell! The thing I liked the most about the Rose City Fans is that they were generally positive, all their regular cheers are in suport of their team and there was only one (hilarious) instance of a unified cheer directed at the other team. They really were a ton of fun to sity with, especially after sitting below the drunken shit talker earlier in the day. Kinda got me thinking about the difference fans can make, sitting with Rose Citys cheering section was fun, and even though I already wanted them to win I certainly was more vocal about it. When I was sitting below the terrible B.A.D fan for their game against Denver I started out unsure of who to cheer for and then felt like cheering for Denver just because of how terrible she was.

Rose City won against Rat City and will be going to Nationals! You should have heard the fans when that happened...

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Disclaimer: these are just my opinions and observations; for super awesome recaps (if you couldn't watch) visit www.derbynewsnetwork.com

First game yesterday was Angel City vs Bay Area, we slept in a little bit and got there about half through so the only observation I really have is man did I feel for those Angel City girls. Final score 227-70 in Bay Area's favor. Ouch. And the ouch just kept on coming with the next game, Tuscon vs Denver final score 387 - 18 in Denver's favor. Watching the skating here is amazing, just the scores don't do it justice, the teams with those high scores are still working pretty hard for those high scores. Though that game was the biggest blow out of the day.

The next game, while the next game is probably going to be the majority of my post here because I still really don't know what to think. Rat City vs Rocky Mountain promised to be a good and intense game, and it was on a whole different level.

Right away Rat City used an......interesting strategy. Lining up stacked right up against the jam line and not moving. This does several things, first it forced Rocky Mountain to play their game because if Rocky skated forward to get the game moving they broke pack, jammers jumped off the line and the Rocky jammer is stuck and Rocky can't block the Rat City jammer while they are out of play. Again, if Rocky takes a knee to break pack then the other team is standing and has that first defense. It was crazy, because Rocky didn't want to give up any advantage and there were (i think) two jams were everyone stood still on the track for the whole two minutes. When you get the crowd chanting skate in unison its pretty bad.

My opinion of Rat City did not improve as things continued. One jam stood still for 2 minutes and all Rat City did was take one girl of the line and put a new one in her spot. So the next jam stood everyone on the jam line for about a minute 15 seconds, then people were skating and the jam ended again before any points were scored. A rather upset fan behind me "F*** you Rat City!! Great strategy, you can't lose if you dont skate!!!" which was about how everyone felt, except that Rat City was losing. They were down 20-30 points and while they were preventing Rocky Mountain from scoring anything they were killing their scoring chances as well. During one of the two minute stand stills a skater from Rocky Mountain skated forward and started figure skating.

The sad part is that when the two teams were skating it was amazing derby! I have a new derby crush, #21 from Rocky Mountain who held the jammer over halfway around the track on her own and then delivered huge hit resulting in a jammer on her ass out of bounds scenario. We sat with Nik Yo Face and she was in love with Rocky Mountains # 27 and I cant say that I blame, the girls skeleton leggings were enough to make me love her, but she was an amazing jammer as well. Ending score was 117-107 to Rocky Mountain.

Next game was Bay Area vs Jet City (oh my god can you imagine skating twice in a day?!?!). This moved at a faster pace, and shocker they lined up on the pivot line! Though I still saw more moving backwards as a pack then I have ever seen before. This was another one of those oh I gosh I feel for you girls bouts with the final score being 302 - 55 in Bay Area's favor.

At this point Reckless and I got back on the MAX and went downtown to find some lunch. We ended up finding this amazing little restaurant called Pastini's where I had the most amazing stuffed manicotti for like 10 bucks. We finished it off by splitting the equivalent of chocolate lava cake with whipped cream, needless to say I didn't eat the rest of the day.

Not gonna lie, I didn't pay too much attention to the 5:30 game, I was way to full and enjoying some stimulating conversation about strategy, boyfriends, and derby butt cheeks. I was also trying to figure out how many beers Reckless had had. Sacred City vs Denver ended 220-59 in Denver's favor.

The final game of the day was absolutely amazing, the crowd was huge and I'm not sure anyone expected Oly to have to fight that hard. Oly vs Rose City was definitely the game of the day and I'm so incredibly happy I was there. That was Derby. Rose City did an amazing job of holding Oly and at the half the score was something along the lines of 68 - 65 Oly. It was incredible. Rose City's Fans are the most awesome people, I saw people dress up as I think unicorns/pegasus all over the place, and talk about a sea of purple I wish I had remembered my camera. There's so many things to say about that game that I'm going to write a seperate post, in case I have you wondering though Oly won 161 - 132.

Friday, September 23, 2011

I'm so incredibly excited to be heading out to Portland today after work to watch the Western Regional’s in person on Saturday and Sunday! Reckless and I will be right there immersing our selves in Derby amazing, seeing more games and action at one time then ever before! Overload? Maybe. I figure it’s like thanksgiving, eating too much and being perfectly happy with it.

I'm practically shaking with excitement at the idea of watching teams like the Oly Rollers, Denver Roller Dolls, Rose City Rollers and Bay Area Derby Girls, too name a few. Its going to be amazing, and if your new to watching and would like to learn all you can you should definitely spend a few minutes (hours) perusing www.derbynewsnetwork.com the site is awesome and I always learn something new. Their Western Regionals Preveiw was extremely enlightening this year and did nothing but make me wish even harder that I had more paid time off.